Infrastructure assets are changing hands at a record pace amid investor demand for secure long-term income. In the past eight weeks, fund stakes worth more than £300m have changed hands, a sum that industry experts expect to accelerate rapidly by the end of the year as the market moves up a gear.

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The sales are being driven by banks and insurance companies wanting to shed such investments because they will become much more expensive to maintain under the incoming capital adequacy rules of Basel III and Solvency II.

Pension funds – either directly or via funds of funds – are proving to be willing buyers as they look for exposure to assets that offer returns with an inflation hedge.

UK chancellor George Osborne has been keen to get pension funds to invest directly in new public infrastructure projects.

In his Budget last week, he said the government was “supporting” a £2bn investment platform being developed by the National Association of Pension Funds and the Pension Protection Fund – though NAPF chief executive Joanne Segars has made clear it will be “owned and run by pension funds, for pension funds”.

These investors tend to be keener on investing in projects once the construction phase is complete, but the chancellor also said that a separate group of funds had approached the Treasury with a view to investing in pre-completion projects.

Asset managers with clients that have long-dated liabilities are also increasingly looking at the asset class. Andreas Utermann, global chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors, said: “We are planning to get involved in infrastructure with the help of Allianz, whose insurance business has long-dated liabilities to cover.”

One placement agent in the private equity industry said the recent transactions marked a “change of pace” in the infrastructure funds market, which, partly by virtue of its size, had seen relatively few trades.

He said: “That situation is clearly changing as investors want access to the asset class, given its ability to provide inflation-linked returns.”

This year, Handelsbanken sold its fund interest in EQT Infrastructure, giving the incoming investor exposure to a portfolio of investments that include Argos Oil Storage in the Netherlands.

Industry estimates put the cumulative value of the recent sales in excess of £300m. Swedish insurance conglomerate Länsförsäkringar is also understood to be selling its infrastructure fund positions as part of a larger private equity portfolio sale to raise $2bn, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

All parties declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

Buyers included the Lothian Pension Fund in the UK and Bayerische Versorgungskammer, Germany’s largest pension scheme, with €50bn in assets under management. A source close to Lothian said the fund had a preference for mature interests. The source said: “It’s more comfortable to invest when you know what you’re buying”.

Large funds of funds have also been active buyers, with both Pantheon – which is currently raising its second dedicated infrastructure fund of funds – and Partners Group picking up interests through their dedicated infrastructure vehicles.

Meanwhile, the NAPF and PPF infrastructure initiative, known as the Pension Infrastructure Platform, hopes to make its first investments by early next year. It will be targeting returns of between two and five percentage points over the retail price index in the long term.

The plan involves about 10 large pension schemes, which have together pledged £1bn, with a further £1bn expected from smaller schemes. Borrowings of £2bn will increase the PIP’s firepower to about £4bn.

The pension funds have not yet decided whether to manage schemes directly or use third-party private equity managers to look after projects, according to Segars.